An alcohol-detection prototype that uses automatic sensors to gauge a driver’s fitness to be on the road has been demonstrated for federal transportation officials at a Massachusetts lab.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were in Waltham on Friday to see the devices, designed to detect instantly if a driver is drunk and prevent a vehicle from starting.
A woman demonstrating the prototype drank two cocktails over 30 minutes, then showed how breath and touch sensors detected her blood-alcohol level.
Developers say the technology would be less intrusive than current alcohol ignition interlock systems that force drivers to blow into a breath-testing device.
Officials say the prototype is at least eight years from commercial use.
Critics question the cost and reliability.
A new report says financially strapped U.S. cities are increasingly looking to tap tax-exempt nonprofits for cash, but methods of collecting payments in lieu of taxes from these institutions often lack consistency and transparency.
The report, to be released on Tuesday by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, said more than 100 municipalities in at least 18 states are collecting millions in payments in lieu of taxes, including large cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
The study says the payments can provide a critical revenue stream for cities, but are too often “haphazard, secretive, and calculated in an ad hoc manner.”
The authors recommend that municipalities work collaboratively with nonprofits and develop equitable systems for determining what nonprofits should pay in lieu of taxes.
A man accused of killing his wife, two young children and mother-in-law in their suburban Boston home was captured by police Thursday, hours after he was charged with four counts of murder.
Thomas Mortimer IV, 43, was charged with killing Laura Stone Mortimer, a 41-year-old economist; her 4-year-old son, Thomas Mortimer V; her 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte Mortimer; and her 64-year-old mother, Ellen Stone. Their bodies were found Wednesday at their in home in Winchester, a community north of Boston where the median household income is about $120,000.
Authorities would not say how the victims died, but District Attorney Gerry Leone described it as a “horrific, disturbing and unspeakable” scene.
Leone’s office confirmed the arrest and scheduled a news conference for later Thursday to release details.
Prior to his arrest Thursday in Bernardston, about 100 miles from Boston, Mortimer was last seen Monday around 6 p.m. at his job at M&R Consultants Corp., a Burlington technology consulting firm, said Anil Shah, the company’s president.
Mortimer was a hard worker who had been making progress at his job since getting hired around a month and a half ago, Shah said. Mortimer accepted the position after a long period without a job and took about two weeks to set up his child care, Shah said.
“He was very professional, very nice guy … always very positive,” said Shah. “Somehow my heart doesn’t believe he couldn’t be involved in anything that he’s been charged with.”
Mortimer had left a message for his supervisor around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday to say he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be at work, Shah said. About two hours later, Mortimer told a co-worker he had been up sick all night and would be back at work on Wednesday, Shah said.
Shah said the company had phone problems on Wednesday but Mortimer did not come to work and hasn’t been seen since.
Laura Mortimer was a senior economist with the Los Angeles-based commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis. The company called her death a tragic loss.
“Laura was a valued and well respected colleague and, more important, a good friend,” the company said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Laura’s family and loved ones at this terrible time.”
Police had issued alerts about Mortimer’s vehicle — a light-colored Toyota Highlander with Massachusetts tags — on electronic sins around the Massachusetts Turnpike and other major highways.
Mortimer grew up in Avon, Conn., and authorities had been stationed outside his parents home there Thursday to watch for his vehicle.
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Associated Press writer Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
A biology professor charged with killing three of her colleagues at an Alabama university has been indicted in the 1986 shooting death of her brother in Massachusetts, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Authorities had originally ruled that the shooting of Amy Bishop’s brother was an accident, but they reopened the case after Bishop was charged in February with gunning down six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, killing three.
Bishop, 45, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 18-year-old brother, Seth, Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said.
Keating said he did not understand why charges were never brought against Bishop.
“I can’t give you any explanations, I can’t give you excuses, because there are none,” he said. “Jobs weren’t done, responsibilities weren’t met and justice wasn’t served.”
Bishop had told police who investigated her brother’s death that she accidentally shot him while trying to unload her father’s 12-gauge shotgun in the family’s Braintree home. Her mother, Judith, the only witness to the shooting, confirmed her daughter’s account to police.
But after Bishop was charged in the Alabama shootings, authorities began reinvestigating Seth Bishop’s death.
U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who was then the Norfolk County district attorney, said that Braintree police never told anyone in his office that after Bishop shot her brother, she tried to commandeer a getaway car at gunpoint at a local car dealership, then refused to drop her gun until officers ordered her to do so repeatedly. Those events were described in Braintree police reports but not in a report written by a state police detective assigned to the district attorney’s office.
Investigators looking at an old crime scene photo from her brother’s shooting discovered a newspaper article about the 1986 killings of actor Patrick Duffy’s parents. The clipping, which was in Bishop’s bedroom, described how a teenager shot the “Dallas” star’s parents with a 12-gauge shotgun and stole a getaway car from an auto dealership.
Keating ordered an inquest, which was held in April. Nineteen witnesses, including Bishop’s parents, testified before Quincy District Court Judge Mark Coven during the closed-door inquest. A grand jury heard evidence this month.
Keating said the indictment, brought 24 years after Seth Bishop’s death, brought little comfort.
“You’re never satisfied when a young boy, a young man, has lost his life,” he said. “You’re never satisfied when justice isn’t served. You’re never satisfied, when using your common sense, in all likelihood, three individuals in Alabama that were killed might not have been because the defendant wouldn’t have been in that room.”
An attorney representing Amy Bishop in the Alabama shootings, Roy Miller, had no immediate comment on the Massachusetts charges. Miller has indicated he is considering an insanity defense for Bishop.
The chief prosecutor in Huntsville, Madison County District Attorney Robert Broussard, didn’t immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. He has said an Alabama grand jury would likely consider charges against Bishop in the university shooting by late summer.
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Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Boston and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this report.
